iPhone 3G launch stories

On-site reports by Matt Saye and Don McAllister

Launch Day kicked off in New Zealand and didn’t wrap up until the next day in some other part of the world. When it was all said and done, the 3G iPhone had officially gone on sale in two dozen different countries to much fanfare and long lines. In at least some instances, the crowds were reported to be even larger than last year’s original iPhone launch. Maybe it’s the $199 price tag. Maybe it’s the expanded feature set. Or maybe now is just the iPhone’s time to go mainstream after spending the past year suggestively working its way into the public consciousness.



We’ve assembled on-site reports from lineups at Apple Stores and AT&T Stores from around the world, to give you a taste of how Launch Day went for everyone. As you’ll see, it wasn’t a perfect launch, with activation issues which forced stores to improvise at one point. But nonetheless there a whole lot of excited new 3G iPhone users out there right now. Here are a few of their stories…

I live in a small university town (pop: 12,000 during the school yeah, about 9,000 during the summer) so when I went to my local AT&T store on July 10 to make sure I was eligible for an upgrade and they told me to get there very early, I laughed. But just to be safe I got there at 6:30 a.m., a full hour and a half before the iPhone went on sale and sure enough there were already 14 people in line ahead of me. By the time 8 o’clock came the line was between 60 and 70, which is considerable for the size of my town.

At this point, if you’re reading this you’ve probably heard about the longer lines and longer waits at both AT&T and Apple Stores, and Oxford, Mississippi was no exception. AT 8 o’clock the AT&T employees let in the first 10 people in line and by 9:10 not a single one had left the store. However, after the initial confusion, during which the store owner came out to apologize for the long waits and explain what was happening, he said they had been on the phone with other stores and worked out some of the issues, and by the time I entered the store around 9:20 that was obvious. While it may have taken over an hour for the first customers to have their phones activated, I left the store around 9:45, not the best wait time, but far better than my predecessors. Part of the reason for speeding up the lines was after purchasing the phones, customers were given the option of taking the phone back to their houses and activating through iTunes there, rather than waiting in the store and clogging up the line. I chose to have mine activated in the store simply because I was there, had already waited this long, and wanted to just have it over and done with. Besides, I didn’t have to go to work until 2 pm, so I could afford the wait.

Once I got home, though, the real frustration kicked in. I had no problem waiting in line for as long as I did; I actually kind of expected it, despite my scoffing at the AT&T employees the day before. However, once I got home, ready to sync my contacts, music, and a few free apps I’d downloaded the night before, I found that I could not add anything at all to the iPhone until it was registered through the iTunes store (a process that is apparently different than the “tethering” the AT&T employees did in-store). Like many (if not all) new iPhone owners that day I was met with constant errors saying iTunes could not connect with the iTunes Store. It was a process of plugging in the iPhone, waiting for it to connect, receiving the error, unplugging and repeating. It was roughly noon by the time I was able to actually connect to the iTunes Store, although to be fair, once I made the initial connection, I was able to breeze through the registration without any more lagging, even when it made more connections to the Store.

After that connection, though I have had nothing but a positive experience. The app store works great (and so do the apps I’ve downloaded). The phone is a dream to use – easy to use, intuitive, and FUN.

So all-in-all my iPhone activation process took roughly 6 hours from arriving at the store to having it fully functional–3 if you don’t count the time spent in line– and the question that my friends have all asked me is: “is it worth it?” Well, let me see, I had fun talking to the people standing in line; I managed to get the 2nd to last black 16GB iPhone in the store; I had a long wait that was expected but a longer one that wasn’t. Oh, and I got an iPhone that I’ve been wanting ever since I saw the initial announcement at the 2007 MacWorld Expo.

So could the Day One process have been better? Yes. Were there flaws that should have been foreseen that were frustrating? Definitely. Was it worth it? Absolutely.

A bit late but I thought I’d best complete the story of the iPhone 3G launch fiasco from my perspective for posterity.

As you may be aware from my previous post, the iPhone I’d ordered online had been cancelled by O2 so if I wanted a phone, I had to take my chance with everyone else at the O2 store on Friday 11th.

Just to step back a day, the V2.0 of the iPhone firmware had been leaked and I’d managed to upgrade my 1st gen iPhone to the new firmware and access the new App store – magic. From my early exploration, it quickly became apparent that the GPS feature was likely to be a killer feature so I sort of decided that I’d take my chance getting in line on Friday.

Checking with the O2 website for what I needed to bring to the store, I thought it best to take a print out of my account and logged on to do just that. Whilst logged on, I stumbled across a “My Orders” page and lo and behold, there was my online order for the iPhone that I’d been notified had been cancelled.

Thinking there was no way they could screw up so badly, I sent off an email (this is the day before launch) asking them to confirm the online order had in fact, been cancelled as the page didn’t show any sign of the order being cancelled. I didn’t worry too much as the O2 site did say that anyone due for an iPhone via courier tomorrow would receive a confirmation text before 6pm on the Thursday. No worries then!

So 6pm came and went so I decided to take my place in the line on Friday.

I set my alarm for the following morning and went to bed.

I awoke an hour earlier than intended at 5:45am due to the fact I’d set the alarm incorrectly. Ah well, must have been an omen!

I set off for my local O2 store and arrived in the summer rain at around 6:45am.

Luckily, I wasn’t the only lunatic and to my delight, found another two people in the queue before me. Always guaranteed to meet a great bunch of people at these events! By 8:02am the line had grown to over 25 people which for a relatively small store, I found astounding! The first guy in the line was Peter McCullogh and Peter shot a short video and posted it to Vimeo.

At promptly 8:02am, the doors were opened and the first four of us were let into the store. As there were 5 staff to 4 customers, I thought this should be quick and painless. Ever the optimist.

So they started to gather details and started to process customers one and two.

As I said, they started but didn’t get very far.

All the necessary internal systems they needed to process the orders failed or they couldn’t log in.

Can someone tell me in this day and age why a technology company doesn’t have the capacity for all of their stores to access their internal corporate systems simultaneously? Now this isn’t 13,000 requests per second as they stated they received on Monday, but probably 2 or 3 reps from a couple of hundred stores – unbelievable!

Now at least we were in the store unlike the 20 or so customers left outside.

So we waited whilst the staff made various calls and sent emails to find out what to do.

And we waited…

Thirty minutes in, a quick check on my email and there is an email from O2. Yes, you guessed it!

Dear sir, your online order we said was cancelled has not been cancelled. In fact, it has already been dispatched and should be with you today! We suggest that you refuse delivery so that this order gets cancelled.

Unbelievable!

So anyway, fifty minutes had passed and the store finally get an email to revert to manual processes and just use paperwork to process the upgrades.

Ten minutes later, we’re on the street with our new iPhones.

The store had 4 16GB phones and approx. 16 8GB phones so I’ve no idea if everyone in the line eventually got a new iPhone.

So I dashed home, way, way behind on my usual production timetable for the weekly screencastsonline show. I swapped the SIM out of my existing phone, plugged in the new iPhone 3G into iTunes and 20 minutes later after restoring my current iPhone image I was away and running. Thankfully I managed to miss the later activation problems that most other people seemed to experience.

Another half an hour later and what turns up but the courier with a second 16GB iPhone. With a heavy heart, I turned him and the other iPhone away.

So now I have my iPhone 3G fully activated and working. I’ve been having a play with the 3G and the Apps and the GPS but I’ll leave my deliberations on those for another posting.

So Apple went against my prediction that they would not go with a “Big Bang” approach to the role out of MobileMe, the App Store and the iPhone 3G.

More fool them!

Interview with 3 Doors Down

You’ve sold more than fifteen million albums, your latest album went to the top of the charts and it’s not the first time, and you currently have the number one rock song in iTunes. So how is it that we never see 3 Doors Down in the tabloids, we never hear anything about you guys unless it’s somehow related to your music?

You know what, man? I’m not really sure exactly why that is but I can definitely tell you that I am glad it’s like that. I guess it’s mainly because, you know, radio has always been our lifeblood, and a lot of times we’re the guys that, it’s like, I was sitting there talking to somebody he asked me what I do for a living or something, and I tell him I sing for a band, and they’ll ask me what band and I’ll tell them and they’re like “Really? I didn’t know what you guys looked like.”



It’s kind of strange but you know I’m so glad that, I’m really thankful that we get to do this and we go out and we’re successful at it and you know it’s all because of our fans. At the same time we get to go out and we get to do this for a living and be successful at it, but I can still go to Wal-Mart and nobody… I mean it don’t bother me, I love talking to fans anyhow.

You just released your fourth album. How did this one end up being self-titled?

I think we just really felt like this record summed up the band more so than the other ones did and I guess the best way I can explain it is the other albums kind of seemed like chapters and this one just kind of seems more like a whole story. And I think it just really shows kind of a cross-section of what we do as a band and a lot of the different styles that we do things in, just kind of all in one record. To me it just kind of felt more like it should be maybe a self-titled one. And I don’t know, maybe the fact that we just couldn’t think of a good name for it or something.

The band took an entire year off before returning to the studio to work on this album. Was that intentional?

It was, man, it was. We toured so hard and and heavy for those first six years, man, and I think you know including making three records, toured thirty-three or thirty-four countries and played probably on average, shoot, probably 200, 250 shows a year. And at the end of that sixth year, you know, it’s like farmers say, every seventh year you have to let a field rest, and this field needed to rest. And we just took a whole year off and just kind of stepped away from music. And I mean we didn’t quit or anything, we just kind of needed a break and we wanted to go away and get hungry for it again.

And so we all did that, and came back hungry. You know it was a little strange, honestly, to jump right back into it after being away from it for a year, cause I didn’t write a song for a year, and I’ll never go that long again without writing one cause actually it’s kind of like riding a bike, they say you never forget how. No you never forget how, but you ain’t near as good at it, you know, when you first step back on it. So it took a little bit of getting back in the right headspace, but I’m so thankful for that year off, and I’m thankful also for the year that we had to write and record this record. You know, it was not like a date that they set and “Man, we’ve got to have this record by this date.” The record company, they said “Guys, y’all go write a record, when you get it done, we’ll be sitting here waiting on it.” And they were.

And it worked out really cool and it was, you know we didn’t go in a studio also this record, we recorded this record in a house down in Orlando. It was a big nice house and stuff, and we just sound-doctored up a couple of rooms and used them as a live room, and brought in some old pre-amps and then done the rest of it through ProTools. And you know you don’t really need a studio now, and that afforded us the time, because you’re not sitting there in the studio saying man, we gotta get this done dude, this is a $2000 a day studio.

And we were able to go down there and chill, like I said it was a big old cool house and it was really relaxed, go outside and go swimming a little while and then go in and record and really made it organic. And at the same time cost a lot, lot less to record like that. It was all around just a really way cooler way of doing it like that, to me.

How did you end up down in Orlando of all places?

We were up in Nashville, wrote the first half of it up in Nashville out in this little farmhouse a little bit outside of town, it’s kind of isolated but not too isolated, you know? And that was predominately during the wintertime, and Nashville gets pretty dang cold in the winter.

By the time summertime rolled around, we were ready to go somewhere a little warmer and a little sunnier, you know, and we picked Orlando just cause we knew there were a lot of, we didn’t want to go to a studio but at the same time we needed to be near an area where there was equipment availability and things like that. And Orlando just seemed like a good spot cause of all the touristy stuff. You know, if you get bored of the studio, you can go down to Universal Studios, Disney, something, you know, and chill down there. And we wound up doing that a lot of times, and just kind of going and amusing ourselves when somebody else was working on their parts for a few days. We came up with a new slogan: “Welcome to sunny Florida where it rains every day.”

The album starts off with a song called Train, which is kind of a ballbuster. How early did you know that it was going to be your leadoff song?

I remember one day were in there, and I think Johnny K said “What are we gonna start the record with, something like Train?” I was like “I don’t know,” and Chris was like “What the hell do you mean you don’t know, of course we’re gonna start the record with Train.”

It comes out of the box and just like wow, there’s something a little bit different. I really like that song and you know, we’re from the South obviously and we’re a rock band but I’ve never really classified us as a southern rock band. But that is a southern rock song if there’s ever been one. And I really like the fact that maybe a band from another region of the country might not could pull that song off so well. It would be kind of like us trying to cover a Ramones song, it just kind of wouldn’t sound right, you know?

I was just about to ask how strongly you guys associated yourselves with southern rock.

To be especially from south Mississippi, and that being the birthplace of the blues and rock and roll and southern rock, it’s kind of hard to separate yourself from just being totally tagged as a southern band. But we’re proud to be from down there, man. In my personal opinion, there ain’t many places you can be from that lends itself to, and I don’t even, honest to God, for what reason I don’t know, but there’s not many more places that lends itself to inspiring good, soulful music rather than the South. I don’t know if it’s the fact that there’s so many churches, that there’s a lot more soul, a lot more blues, just a lot more music in general. Cause you know I mean the South, if it’s full of one thing, it’s full of music. And so it’s a great place to be from as a musician, but I don’t really know what that is, that you are pretty much automatically tagged as a southern band until you kind of maybe do something to deliberately break yourself away from that. And you know, when we first started, I kind of wanted to be separated from it. I didn’t want anybody to call me no southern band, you know, all that. And you try not to talk so much like a redneck, which I found out was just inevitably impossible for me. After awhile it’s kind of like you know what, if we’re a southern band, well damn, we’re a southern band. We are from about as far south as you can go without falling in the Gulf of Mexico.

I was talking with Jared Weeks of Saving Abel, they’re an up and coming band from the South, and he specifically made of point of crediting 3 Doors Down for paving the way for his band. How does that make you feel?

It makes me proud, man. You know, if you can actually be around long enough to be an influence to somebody, I guess one, you’ve done it for awhile, and two, you’ve done it well enough I suppose to have influenced somebody. And it just makes me proud, it makes me proud of us for sticking around that long and it makes me proud for those guys for doing it themselves, and for being an influence. It’s a pretty cool feeling.

With the song Citizen/Soldier you’ve got a tie-in with the National Guard.

I reckon it was around October of last year, maybe a little earlier than that. They wanted to run a spot in the theaters for the end of the year, the holiday season, and they approached us to write a song for a treatment that they had. And the original treatment for the video was kind of showing where the National Guard was going, into like the future, it was gonna be a futuristic video, almost like Minority Report where they kind of reach their hand inside of the screen and things like that, move cubes around. And I had a couple of conversations with the Colonel and he told me a couple of points that they wanted to hit on in the song. And we’re proud to do anything for our military. I love to do anything for them that I can, and say thank you to them in any way that I possibly can, and so we jumped at the chance to do it. But having those couple of conversations with the Colonel helped me out a lot.

I tried to think about what our National Guard does. They were our first military. And they go and they fight, but they do a lot for us here at home. You know, I just got a MySpace message from a girl up in Iowa the other day that was talking about how close her town was to flooding, and National Guard fixing their levees, I’m talking about like hours before it was gonna flood their entire town. So that’s the kind of things I wanted to focus on in the song, not only how they do things abroad, but how they do things here at home.

After turning the song in, they were like “We love the song, but it really doesn’t go with the treatment, so we’re just gonna switch the treatment.” And they went back and re-wrote the treatment and kind of showed the reflection and the history of the National Guard and what they do, and all the different dynamics of it. And Antoine Fuqua stepped in and directed that video, he’s done Shooter and Training Day, and he’s done a great job on that video. I was just proud to be a part of that whole project.

Nothing will make you more proud than when a soldier will come up to you and say “Thank you for supporting us” and “It helps me out when I was deployed” or “It makes me proud to know that somebody supports us” and you know, that’s the least we can do is support our soldiers, you know? Cause regardless of political belief, that’s here nor there. A soldier is a soldier, and they deserve our support one hundred percent and I’m so glad to give it to them.

You’re a few months away from turning thirty. Has that affected your songwriting on tracks like “It’s Not My Time” which are addressing mortality?

I don’t know if it’s a little bit subliminally or not. Not on purpose I don’t suppose. About right now in your life, in my opinion, is about the age that you start realizing the permanency of things. Even when you’re in your early twenties and stuff, and especially when you’re a teenager, you don’t really realize it but I’ve started to realize in the last couple of years that there ain’t no reset button and this is not a dress rehearsal. You get to write it one time and, you know, you only get to live once. And yeah I guess just as you get about our age, you’re starting to see your youth not go away, but you start to see a different chapter of youth, and your youth starts to change. And it makes you realize that hey, I don’t ever get to be twenty-one again, I’m not gonna go back to that age. I don’t get to push rewind. And so I guess maybe it leads to writing from a little bit more of a sense of permanence.

You started off as the drummer for 3 Doors Down before you moved up front to be the singer. Have you ever been tempted to pull a Dave Grohl and sneak off during your downtime and play the drums in the studio for some other band?

You know what, I’d like to do that but I don’t know if I’m a good enough drummer to actually do that. I sit around and we’re doing pre-production right now and just doing a couple of practice days cause we’ve been off tour four a couple of weeks, just to get the cobwebs shook back loose, and I sat down on drums for a little bit yesterday. I don’t know if I’m good enough to go play with anybody or anything, but I do still enjoy playing. I’ve been gonna set my drums up at my house for the last month and hadn’t done it, but I do still enjoy playing, and love to sit down and write behind the drums. It helps me out a lot, strange as it sounds. I do still like to play, but I like listening to Greg play too. I always tell him he plays like Animal off Muppet Babies, or John Bonham, one or the other, I ain’t sure. But he’s a great drummer.

Drums is kind of strange. It’s one of those instruments that I swear, you can actually… you’re not gonna get better on guitar from sitting there watching somebody playing guitar. But drums, I swear to you, is one of those instruments that you can actually improve by just simply sitting there watching somebody play.

So are we ever going to see a 3 Doors Down tour where there’s two drumsets set up back there so you can do the dueling drums?



Hopefully this summer. I’m trying to work that out right now. Cause actually, right there in the middle of Citizen/Soldier it’s got that big percussion part and I’d like to just, what we’re planning on doing if we can it worked out, is right there in that percussion part just stopping the music and just doing that. Because it doesn’t really have to be two big elaborate parts. You get to mic’d drumsets going on stage it sounds, we done it during the Better Life tour a long time ago, and it sounds killer, man. And I mean you don’t have to be a great drummer when you got another one playing along with you, you know? So hopefully we get to do that this summer.

iPhone and iPod touch go 2.0

Make no mistake about it: Apple wants you to buy a 3G iPhone. But while technology companies (including Apple) have far too often thrown existing hardware users under a bus when new software is released, in the hopes that it’ll begrudgingly motivate users to buy the new hardware, Apple has decided to instead throw existing iPhone and iPod touch users a bone with the release of the 2.0 software. By “a bone” we pretty much mean “the opportunity to buy third-party software applications through Apple,” but nonetheless the release of 2.0 for existing users is a big deal that should make the existing user base (mostly) happy.



First things first: a software upgrade can’t turn existing hardware into something it isn’t. So anyone expecting their original iPhone to magically gain 3G network speeds or GPS functionality are in for a rude awakening. But what existing users will gain is the same new operating system as the 3G iPhone – to put it into computer terms it’s like being given a free Leopard upgrade for your Mac or a free Vista upgrade for your PC.


At least it’s free if you’re an iPhone user. For reasons that are rumored to have something to do with accounting laws in ways that defy any logic that anyone has attempted to apply, the iPod touch 2.0 upgrade costs ten dollars and can be “purchased” through iTunes (your cost and resulting functionality will be the same whether you purchased the twenty dollar January update or not). Maybe Apple is looking to punish you guys for not buying an iPhone, as by now it’s clear that while Apple is more than happy to take your money if you have your heart set on an iPod touch, they’d really rather you’d gone the other direction and bought an iPhone instead.



In any case, the 2.0 update will give you the ability to download third party applications from the App Store in iTunes (many of which are free, some of which carry varying price tags) and install them on your iPhone or iPod touch. Apps from companies like Facebook and PayPal, which are all about motivating you to use their services more frequently, are predictably free. Most games carry some kind of price tag.



Disappointingly, the 2.0 update doesn’t provide so much in the way of interface enhancements or revisions when it comes to the iPhone’s “iPod” application or the iPod touch’s Music and Video applications. This means that the same rough edges that were there when the iPhone first launched are still mostly present a year later. Also, don’t expect to be able to turn the screen sideways in the Mail application, turn automatic Cover Flow off in the music application, or copy and paste text in any manner – despite the fact that these seem to be some of the most-requested features from existing users.



That having been said, there are some noticeable improvements that do line up with complaints we’ve been hearing from users for the past year. The iPhone now sports a (searchable!) “Contacts” application, meaning that you no longer have to go into the “Phone” app just to look up a friend’s street address for instance. And the Mail app now offers the ability to delete multiple messages at once by checking them off and then hitting the Delete button when you’re finished.

While the “gripe list” of missing features and interface enhancements that users have been compiling looks like it will continue into the iPhone’s second year (and possibly into the iPod touch’s second year, as slowly as Apple has progressed with these things), the 2.0 update is a big step forward for users of both devices. And although Apple’s primary motivation for giving it to us for free or cheap is likely so they can sell us the non-free software apps, we have no problem with that since nothing says that you have to spend anything at the App Store – and from where we’re sitting, there’s no reason not to go ahead and install the 2.0 update on your iPhone or iPod touch.



To help get you started, we’ve highlighted our early hands-on experiences with five new applications for the iPhone and iPod touch, three of them free, in this issue. There are more than five hundred apps already available, so feel free to let us know which ones you’d like to see reviewed in-depth in future issues.

New Media Expo’s Tim Bourquin

The Expo has a new name this year. What are you hoping to convey with the name “New Media Expo” and who is the event geared toward?

The event is still very much for podcasters. But over the years, Podcast and New Media has become redundant – a bit like calling a show the Book and Publishing Expo. We’ve also added a lot of content and sessions for people who are creating video podcasts. We wanted to ensure people knew we were a convention for both audio and video content. Bloggers are also an important part of the show and New Media certainly includes blogs.

For the first time, the Expo is being held in Las Vegas. What does the new location bring to the table?

Las Vegas is much easier to get to for folks from the East Coast and cheaper as well. Since we’re having the show during the summer, it also offers people a place to take a quick vacation if they want to combine it with attending the Expo. Our room rate at the Hilton next door is $115 which is only $10 more than we had in Ontario. Having the Expo in Las Vegas will allow a more national audience to attend easily instead of being more West Coast-centric. It also adds to the credibility of podcasting and new media as a growing industry.

What can you tell us about keynote speaker Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV?

Gary has a great story to tell because he’s used podcasting and new media to the fullest to build his notoriety, his business and his personal brand. He’s also a fantastic speaker. His passion for his show and online media will be an inspiration to anyone who wants to create content and promote it to their audience.

What’s new in the exhibit hall this year?

We’ve got quite a few new companies this year including Mackie and Sony Creative Software. Attendees are going to be able to evaluate and demo all the important hardware, software and services they need to create great content.

Advance registration for the exhibit hall and keynotes is free, so why should attendees also register for the conference sessions?

We’ll always offer a free registration choice because I wanted to ensure the show is available to anyone on any budget. However, for those content creators that want to take their shows to the next level, we wanted a more in-depth educational conference that will allow them to do that. There are free workshops in the exhibit hall so even attendees that opt for that will get education. But at $399 for three days, the conference is a lot cheaper than most tech-related conferences so it’s a great value.

What advance resources are available to this year’s attendees?

I’ve always said that some of the best reasons to attend the Expo are outside of the Expo – meetups with other podcasters, hallway conversations and parties. We try to foster those as much as possible by having a Wiki, message board and twitter feed that attendees can follow to find out what’s going on at the show. Sometimes a random conversation with a fellow podcaster between workshops can make the entire trip worthwhile for them, so we try to make those happen as easily as possible. You can find all those tools here.

Super Monkey Ball for iPhone

Perhaps the most highly anticipated game for the iPhone is Super Monkey Ball, which many users have been publicly salivating over since it was first demoed. One of several “tilt” games, Super Monkey Ball takes advantage of the iPhone’s built-in accelerometer to allow you to control all aspects of the game simply by holding your iPhone parallel to the ground and then tilting it in all directions in order to lead a monkey inside of a ball through various three-dimensional levels – and collect a few bananas along the way.



If the premise and gameplay sound simple and almost child-like, that’s because they are. But based on a few days of gameplay, the simplicity doesn’t prevent Super Monkey Ball from being addictingly fun. Unless you’re already accustomed to handheld gaming consoles, getting a feel for making the ball go the direction and speed you’re hoping for will take some practice. Think of placing a ping pong ball in the middle of a card table and then trying to move the ball around by tilting the entire table; jerky moves will create too much speed, and trying to bring the ball to a complete stop requires surprising dexterity.



Super Monkey Ball deserves a full in-depth review, particularly in light of its multiple levels, many of which require success on the early levels before becoming unlocked. Our review is coming, but the early appraisal is that it’s worth the ten bucks just to see the iPhone’s accelerometer in action in such an imaginative and colorful way.

Interview with Kari Kimmel

You’ve released your own album “A Life in the Day” and you’ve also written songs for everyone from the Backstreet Boys to American Idol’s Kimberly Locke. How do you balance those two career paths?

Well, the great thing about being both a writer and a singer is that I have the freedom to write whatever I’m feeling at the time. I love so many different kinds of music from R&B to Country to super pop, so whatever I’m feeling that day is what I write. Some of those songs work for me as an artist and some of them work much better for someone else.

Your songs have been used on dozens of television shows. Do you make a point of trying to watch them all?



Actually, it’s funny, because I pretty much never watch t.v.. I keep myself so busy with singing and writing and meetings, I never have time. Every once in awhile I’ll download a show I had a song in from iTunes. My grandmother has actually watched almost every show I’ve written for and gives me the rundown . She has even sat through The Hills and Laguna Beach and shows she would never normally watch. Then she calls me and tells me when my song was used, how long of a clip they used, what was going in that scene, etc. She’s awesome!!

You not only sang the theme song for Ella Enchanted, you also co-hosted the red carpet interviews for the premiere. What was that experience like?

That was so much fun!! It was my first time to ever host a show and it was really exciting to meet the cast and interview them and just have that whole experience. Jesse (McCartney) was such a sweetheart and every one I worked with at Miramax and Disney were great! My favorite part was probably getting a ton of amazing clothes – for free!! 



Do you see yourself pursuing additional journalistic efforts in the future?

Probably not. I wouldn’t be opposed to it, but I don’t have much of a passion for it either. My love is in music and anything surrounding that, whether that is singing, writing, producing…

What’s the difference between your work as a solo artist and your band Frill?

My music as a solo artist is more of a singer/ songwriter vibe – very influenced by musicians such as Carole King and Elton John. Frill has much more of a fun band feel influenced by bands such as The B-52’s and Blondie. I think there is definitely a time and place for both types of music. My artist music is much more introspective and I sing about real true feelings and experiences that people can relate to. The music we do in Frill is just about having fun, dancing, and not worrying about anything serious. Sometimes I don’t want to think and just want to be happy and listen to feel-good music that makes me smile and do silly dances and I think that’s what sets Frill’s music apart.

So far Frill has only released the song LOW and the accompanying video. Is there more coming on that front?

We are in the studio right now working on a few new songs. We wanted to release the video just to the friends and fans who have been following my solo career and wondering what I’ve been doing in the studio. Plus, I trust my fans. If they love it, then it’s good. I don’t really care if an A&R exec at a major label loves it. I care about what my fans dig, so it was kind of a test, and we’re really happy with the response!

What is it about Roxette’s “It Must Have Been Love” that led you to do a cover version?

A great song is a great song- even when it has cheesy 80’s production!! It was way cool back then! I have always loved that song and wanted to hear what it would sound like with a more sentimental feel that would really give life to the lyrics and not just the beautiful melody. I hope my version accomplished that. The original was freaking awesome, this is just a different take.

What are you working on next?

I’m working on more solo music as well as Frill. I have a song on the new soundtrack “songs inspired by the movie Wall*E” which will be released on iTunes the first week of July and then as a full hard copy cd sometime in November. I have a song airing on The “L” Word coming up as well as a few upcoming t.v. placements in the works… There are a few really fun things that I wish I could share, but I might get a bit kick in the booty if I do, so you might just have to check back in a month or two!

First Look: Facebook for iPhone

One of the very first web-based applications released for the iPhone last year was the Facebook application, which more or less took the Facebook.com website and stripped it down to the basics so iPhone users could take advantage of the social networking site’s most fundamental features on their three-inch screen (see our interview with Facebook’s Joe Hewitt in the December 2007 issue of iProng Magazine). Now Facebook has raised the stakes by releasing an App Store-based version of its iPhone app, which on first blush feels like the original web app on steroids.



Facebook’s most important mobile functionality, the status update, is front and center – along with a camera button which allows you to use the iPhone’s camera functionality from within the Facebook app in order to take photos and upload them to your Facebook page by tapping just a couple of buttons.



Along the bottom of the screen are icons to take you to the Facebook home page, along with your Profile, Friends, Chat, and Inbox. That last feature might be the only source of consternation among users, at least initially. When Facebook finally relented and allowed us to view our Facebook messages via email without having to log in and read them on their site, many of us simply allowed the messages to pile up as “unread” because we’d already read them via email. So while the Facebook app’s desktop icon tries to be helpful by displaying the number of unread messages with the same red and white numerical ellipse as the iPhone’s built-in application…well let’s just say that mine says I have 283 new messages. So some of us are in for a tedious “mark messages as read” session on the real Facebook website (where you can process twenty at a time) before that particular “feature” becomes useful.



That one-time annoyance aside, iPhone users who’ve liked using Facebook’s web app should love this app – and it’s a free download.

Podsafe Cafe: Carla Lynne Hall

What’s the reasoning behind releasing your new live EP, the Dirty5?


The EP was originally a live show that I had recorded while I was finishing up my full-length studio CD, Supernova. It was my first gig in a while, and it ended up being a night to remember – just a great vibe. At the time, I had come across a few articles that referred to “Dirtysomethings”, single women in their 30’s who were enjoying romantic adventures instead of seeking husbands, and I joked about it from the stage.

I received a lot of requests for a copy of the recording, so I thought, “What the heck?” I happened to be 35, newly single, and flirting madly from the stage, so the name stuck.



So how did you earn the reputation as the “do it yourself diva”?


When I first started performing original music, I had a few music industry doors slammed in my face – just like most musicians. Luckily, this also happened around the beginning of the whole DIY (Do-It-Yourself) revolution. I saw musicians, such as Ani DiFranco, build and sustain careers outside the traditional music industry, and I was totally inspired by that. I was so inspired that I started writing articles and giving lectures for musicians who wanted to learn how to do the same.

How did your time working at a major label affect your decision to start your own label, Moxie Entertainment?


As a musician, working at a major music label can often be disheartening. I saw people get deals based on things that had little or nothing to do with music. And the better I was at doing my day gig, the least likely my bosses were going to give me a break. I learned the hard way that no one is going to care about your music as much as you will, and if you’re going to find success, you’re gonna have to take matters into your own hands.

After a round of layoffs in the music industry, I started my own label Moxie Entertainment. The word moxie means “courage and aggressiveness”, which are qualities every indie musician needs!

How did you get involved with podsafe music?


My publicist is Ariel Hyatt at Ariel Publicity, whose focus is “CyberPR”. She gets musicians lots of online exposure for their music by encouraging them to offer as much free MP3s as possible on the podsafe music network.

How has podsafe music impacted your career?


Having podsafe music available enables podcasters, internet radio DJs, and other music lovers to access and share my music without worrying about copyright issues. I have lots of podsafe tracks available, so listeners can get an earful of what I sound like before they buy Supernova or Dirty5.

How did you end up working as a music journalist?


I started writing articles for musician websites so readers would click to my website and check out my music. The irony was that, after having so many articles floating around, Vibe Magazine asked me to start their first music business column. To tell the truth, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go in that direction when the idea was first presented.

But when I realized that I’d get to interview recording artists who had already achieved success, it was hard to say no. When the Vibe column ended, I compiled my articles and interviews into an eBook called “The DIY Guide to the Music Biz”.

How does living in New York City impact your life as a professional musician?


On one hand, NYC is a great kick in the butt for musicians. There is so much talent here, and on any night of the week, you can check out great live music. There are also lots of opportunities to network and meet people who can potentially help your music and career. This level of quality makes you bring your “A Game” to the table.


On the other hand, NYC is one of the most expensive cities to live in. Musicians have the challenge of making ends meet, while continuing to work on their art. It can be a tough balancing act. But if you’re determined and focused, it’s so worth it!

What’s next for you professionally?


To support my Supernova and Dirty5 CDs, I’ll be performing as much as possible in the New York area, trying out new venues. I’ve also been invited to perform in Europe, which will be a first for me, and I’m looking forward to that.

My blog at RockStarLifeLessons.com has been growing in popularity, and I’ve been working hard to keep info fresh for my readers. To keep current with all of the changes in the music biz, I’m also working on the next edition of “The DIY Guide to the Music Biz”.


Later this month, I’ll be offering a new workshop called “The Music Marketing Machine” which I’m also excited about. It’s a four week course, which is equal parts lecture, mastermind group, networking meeting, and supportive community for musicians. At the end of the four weeks, each student will have a personalized music marketing plan. Ariel Publicity will be providing the online mastermind component, so my students in NYC can also share lessons with other musicians around the world.

Twitter 101: Gaining Followers

Say hello to Twitter, the platform where you post brief and sometimes cryptic messages in the hopes that people will become your followers. Sounds a bit like a cult, doesn’t it? Actually, it’s one of the more central tenets of New Media here in 2008, having become so popular that it’s seeing perhaps more growing pains than any other social networking platform. It’s also extremely difficult to explain what it is and how it works to someone who isn’t using it. Most people go for the “instant messaging” analogy, but I find that doesn’t help much since it’s difficult for anyone to envision an iChat conversation involving a hundred or a thousand people in a way that doesn’t sound nightmarish. So instead I tell people to picture Facebook stripped down to nothing but status updates and profile pictures, structured in such a way that you see nothing but status updates from your friends, one on top of the other. Limit the updates to 140 characters, substitute “followers” for “friends” and you’re most of the way to understanding Twitter.



But one of the fundamental differences between the two services is that on Facebook you typically only “friend” people who are actually friends (or acquaintances, friends of friends, etc), Twitter’s stripped-down nature allows you to theoretically follow as many people as you want, perhaps including people you’ve never met whom you simply find entertaining. New users often struggle with this concept: who should I follow, and if someone follows me, should I follow them back? Should I follow people semi-randomly, simply because someone I’m following sent them an “at” message, or simply because someone I’m following is following them?

None of these questions has hard and fast answers, as it depends on what kind of user experience you’re looking for – an admittedly difficult question to answer when you’re just starting out on Twitter and you’re still figuring out what you’re doing.


One fairly common theme among new Twitter users, however, is that they want to get at least some people following them (otherwise they’re almost literally talking to themselves when posting). And the easiest way to make that happen is to go ahead and follow some people yourself.


But not everyone is going to follow you back just because you’ve started following them. I generally try to, as evidenced by the fact that I currently have about 2600 followers and I’m following about 2400 people myself. (that’s about a fourth the number of followers that Chris Brogan has, and less than a tenth of Robert Scoble, so it’s all relative).


I receive several email notifications from Twitter per day, letting me know that someone has begun following me. And with each one, I have to make a decision (sometimes rather quickly) about whether to follow each of them in return. I typically do unless I see any red flags, but I thought I’d take a moment to share exactly what it is I’m looking for when making those decisions. It’s probably not that far off from what other users are looking for, so it just might come in handy for those of you who are new to Twitter and hoping to get people to follow you in return:

Are you a human?



With very few exceptions, I’m not about to follow anyone whose account appears to consist merely of posts from an automated robot. So if all of your posts are of the “@johnsmith posted a photo on Flickr [link]” or “@johnsmith new blog entry at [link]” then don’t expect me to jump on board. Some popular websites have successfully gotten their twitter-using readers to follow such twitter-bots, but it’s not my thing. I’m much more inclined to follow an account that’s being maintained by a real person, with the occasional site link thrown in amongst their real-world posts.



Actually post something!



One of the toughest calls to make is when someone begins following me before they’ve posted anything yet. How do I know whether you’re a real person or an automated bot? Do yourself a favor and make a few posts before following anyone. They don’t have to be polished or witty (most people’s earliest Twitter posts aren’t), they just have to provide evidence that you’re a real human being.



Easy does it



Often the first things I look at when deciding whether to follow someone back is the ratio of “following” to “followers.” If someone is following 300 people but only has eight people following them, my first thought is that there has to be something wrong. My tendency is to want to assume that it’s because the person is posting absolute crap and none of those 300 people wants to follow them back. That might not be fair, but nonetheless that’s what it looks like on first blush. So don’t set yourself up to be confused by one of those unfortunate folks by following hundreds of people right out of the gate before you give them the chance to follow you back.



Find your friends



Take advantage of Twitter’s “Find & Follow” feature to seek out people you know from other walks of your digital life who might be on Twitter. There are two obvious reasons for doing so: these are people you’re likely going to want to follow, and they’re more likely to follow you back if they know who you are. Enough said.



Find the friendlies



Twitter users such as Brogan and Scoble are highly likely to follow you back, so long as you fall within their rather broad criteria (which are probably similar to mine). Finding these folks is easy: just look for users who update rather frequently and have large-ish and fairly similar “followers” and “following” numbers.



Speak my language



Although I feel bad about it, I’m unlikely to follow someone back if the majority of their posts are in a language I don’t understand. I’m not doing either one of us any favors by following you back if your posts are in German or French or Japanese. It always makes me wish I could speak (or at least read) more languages.


Use your real name



When I first started on Twitter my username was “iProng” and I didn’t get a lot of followers. It’s not that other users weren’t fans of the magazine, it’s that they assumed my account was some kind of auto-feed for iProng’s content instead of a real-life account from a real person. So I changed my user name to “billpalmer” and found that a much higher percentage of the people that I was following were following me back. Some Twitter users have attracted a great number of followers by using the name of their show as their username, but in my experience that’s the exception.



Don’t play games



If you’re going to click the “follow” button next to someone’s name, make sure it’s because you actually want to see their posts in your timeline. There’s nothing wrong with realizing later that this just isn’t someone you want to hear from and subsequently unfollowing them. But whatever you do, don’t follow people just so you’ll follow you back. You’ll end up with a Twitter page full of posts you don’t want to see, which just craps up your user experience. And whatever you do, don’t “follow” someone so they’ll get an email notification and then immediately unfollow them, as such behavior will get noticed and you don’t want that kind of reputation among the Twitter community.



It’s not a race, there’s no prize for having the most followers, and attempting to rack up followers through insincere means will get you precisely nowhere. That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with following total strangers – just make sure you’re doing so because you actually want to be following them.


Don’t assume the worst



Sometimes Twitter has a bad day and sends out follower notifications on a delay or not at all (I usually make a point of not following people on days in which Twitter seems to be slow to load, or on days when I’m not receiving any follower notifications myself). So just because someone hasn’t followed you back, don’t assume they hate your guts; it could just be that they haven’t gotten the memo. Give them time to catch up on their email, receive a delayed notification, or manually comb over their followers list to check for new people (I do this myself about once every two weeks).



What you don’t want to do in such cases is to keep unfollowing and re-following someone, as that’s just a good way to clog their inbox and make them think unflattering thoughts about you. Instead, try sending them an “@” message introducing yourself. Not all users have their account set up so they can see “@” messages from people they aren’t following, but I do. Each time I receive one from someone I don’t recognize, I check to make sure I’m following that person.



Don’t sweat it



I post a lot. Too much, in the eyes of some users – particularly those who only follow a dozen people and end up having their Twitter page filled by my voluminousness. So I never take offense when someone doesn’t follow me back, even if it’s someone I know from the real world. Not everyone has the same amount of time to keep up with other people’s Twitter posts during the day, so if they feel they have to limit the number of people they follow and I don’t make the cut, that’s cool. I recommend adopting the same mentality yourself. The bottom line is that if you’re following them, you get to see their posts whether they’re following you back or not, which is the real point of Twitter anyway.



Feel free to follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/billpalmer. So long as you’re an actual human being and I can determine that by looking at your Twitter page, the odds are really strong that I’ll follow you back. In fact if you’re already following me and I’m not following you, it’s probably in error – shoot me an email and let me know.

Musician Diary: St. Louis

It’s been almost a week since I got back from the Indie Buzz Bootcamp in St. Louis. I had such a great time there and have been so busy since then working on my music that it took me awhile to sit down and write you about it!

First off I want to say hello to all my new friends from the weekend. Whether I met you at the conference, while street performing in the loop or six hundred and thirty-two feet up in the air in the arch looking over the flooded Mississippi, you made my weekend awesome and I love you for it!

It all started out Friday when I flew to St. Louis and immediately after arriving at our hotel Griffin and I took off for the arch. It was incredible to see it in person and I recommend taking the elevator/train/carnival ride contraption up to the top when you have a chance. And stop by below for some delicious hot cocoa mixed with a wooden spoon in the “old time” coffee and sweets shop below the arch. It’s delicious and the people are dressed up like they were when Lewis and Clark came through town in the nineteenth century. Correct me if I didn’t remember that correctly – I’m not good with dates.



After that I tried to pull Griffin over to the lake to look at the baby ducks but it was getting late and we wanted to walk through downtown more so we didn’t. On our walk we passed a fountain that was dyed pink in honor of the breast cancer walk going on. We wound up at Union Station where we tried some fudge after the employees at the shop sang and teased us for not participating in a fun call and response thing they were doing.

Most of the weekend was spent at the Indie Buzz Bootcamp. It was an incredible conference put together by indie music marketing guru Bob Baker and his girlfriend Pooki. They set up all of these great networking parties and events, fed us and made me feel very welcome. The speakers were all very motivating and super accessible.

I had the chance to perform on Saturday night with some hit writers from Nashville in the Behind the Song Café. I met Rylee Madison and Wil Nance who are both based out of Nashville. Wil wrote “She’s everything” for Brad Paisley. He teased me a lot about performing on the subway but he’s not so bad!

Sunday I must have woken up on the lucky side of the bed because I won a copy of the Indie Bible and thirty-six custom t-shirts from StickersAndMore.com. Look out for those soon! That afternoon Griffin and I got a little tour from Pooki’s son down to The Loop. If you haven’t been, I definitely recommend checking it out when you visit St. Louis. It’s this strip of shops and restaurants about a mile long and on Sunday’s there’s this happening hippy drum circle that you would never expect in St. Louis.

I like to think I am a hippy but after seeing these free spirits I know I’m nowhere close! One guy who was wearing a turtle shell for a hat that he had made after finding the turtle on the side of the road offered me his guitar string earring. He had taken an old string and cut it off to about 1.5 inches after the round threading and just put it in his ear and bent it around. “It has its own built in clasp,” he said. I couldn’t: 1) Take a prized possession like that and 2) Worry about getting some disease from the metal. If I didn’t realize that I wasn’t a hippy before, it became clear as day then!

Anyways, We hung around for a while listening to the drum circle and then headed over to a restaurant just as it started raining. I wasn’t expecting much but I had the most incredible salad at this place. The caesar dressing was made with curry and I think I freaked out the waiter by telling him how great it was about eight billion times.

After our tummies were full and merry I went out on a search for a place to play my music on the street and hopefully make some new fans. I found a shady spot under a tree where instead of competing with the trains I was up against about a hundred sparrows tweeting loudly because they were so happy the sun had come back out. I started playing and it was slow at first but some people hung around to listen and I met three stellar guys who jammed with me on the Uke.

In the end I got rained out and I had to run half a mile to the train. Griffin and I got back in the shuttle where we met the owner of the hotel we were staying at. He grew up with Sheryl Crow. Small world! Back at the hotel we wound up hanging out in the computer room with some conference stragglers as I entertained myself learning how to make paper cut out streamers of girls in dresses, hearts, fish and a guitar. I left them for some stiff workaholic to find the next morning.

I woke up late Monday before we left and spent about 30 minutes enjoying the Jacuzzi and pool before having Panera Bread (aka St. Louis Bread Co.) for some late brunch. The trip back to LAG airport was pretty painless save for a little two hours delay in Atlanta where we again went to Panera Bread (aka Atlanta Bread Co.).

After writing all of this I’m not sure who would find it all interesting but it put a huge smile on my face to think of all the fun I had and most of all the great people I met!

Till next time St. Louis!

xo
Natalie

First Look: ColorTilt for iPhone

Most games have a goal. Get to the finish line. Collect all the items. But ColorTilt is a “game” in the same sense that an Etch-a-Sketch is a game: there are goals, no checkpoints, no timers, in fact nothing specific you’re even supposed to be doing. A color screen flashes and you draw on it with your finger. Tilt the iPhone in any direction and the colors will change. That’s pretty much the gist of the application.



As such, your level of fun is dependent on your imagination and your willingness to participate a “game” that has essentially no structure. Write your name, draw a picture of a house, or just doodle. Use it as a time-killer, stress reliever, or because you like the pretty colors. And when you’ve filled the page, just turn your iPhone upright and shake it – just like an Etch-a- Sketch in fact – and the screen will erase itself so you can start anew. Kids will obviously enjoy this one, but I suspect adults with a sense of whimsy will as well.



ColorTilt is so simple that the ninety-nine cent price tag seems appropriate. That having been said, it’s probably worth the dollar even if you only use it as an occasional diversion. And you just know you want to use the shake-to-erase feature to impress all your friends who don’t have iPhones.

Welcome to the platform!

Depending on your viewpoint, the iPhone user base just got a whole lot larger or the world just got a little smaller. While more than a hundred million iPods have gone out the door over the past six-plus years, the iPhone has remained something of a (very popular) niche through its first year on the market. Sure, they sold a few million of them. But with its four to six hundred dollar price tag, comparatively small capacity, a bevy of interested folks who had to wait for their existing contracts to run out, and power users scratching their heads wondering why the iPhone wasn’t using the world’s fastest mobile data network, millions more have been sitting on the sidelines for the past twelve months, waiting for the right time to dive in.

And by all accounts, that time is now. Just take a look at all those people in line this past Friday, crowds which at some stores outmatched last year’s Launch Day lines. Here’s a hint: they weren’t all existing iPhone users looking to upgrade. In fact number of existing iPhone users are in no hurry to buy the new iPhone because they’re already happy with the one they’ve got, and even if they are planning on upgrading soon, well, they’ve already done the “get in line for five hours” thing and were content to wait until the crowds subsides.

What that means, of course, is that many of those people in line this weekend were buying their first iPhone. That’s why they wanted to go stand in line. They wanted that same experience that we early adopters had last year when they were still waiting on the sidelines, or they just didn’t want to wait one day longer than they had to before joining the iPhone user base.

And to all of those folks, I just want to take a moment to say welcome to the platform. By all accounts there are quite a number of you right now. You’ve been watching the iPhone experience unfold from afar, with your iPod in one hand and your flip-phone in the other, wondering what all the fuss is about – and now you’re a part of it.

Maybe you weren’t looking to join a community, maybe you were just looking to buy a piece of useful hardware. But in any case, if you’re new to the platform and you’ve read this far into this issue, then I hope you like what you see. This is pretty much who we are, covering everything an iPhone (or iPod) user would want to know about, ranging from the device itself, to talking with the people who create the content you’re looking to load onto the device. Interviews with famous (and not so famous) musicians and podcasters, reviews of hardware and software, commentary on the state of the industry, and tips to steer you in the right direction. In any given issue of iProng Magazine you’re about as likely to find an iTunes album review as you are an iPod speaker review, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

For those of you who have already been a part of the iPhone platform for awhile, you’ll note that the user base just got bigger – and a whole lot more mainstream. For the first time, our ranks will include people who would never consider paying more than $200 for a cell phone. And now that third party software applications are legitimately available, the days of hacking your iPhone to install renegade software apps are officially over. While some might continue to choose the practice of turning their iPhone into a science experiment, we won’t be covering it here. It’s just not what the mainstream iPhone user cares about, and after this past weekend’s influx of “regular folks” to the platform, the iPhone is undoubtedly now a mainstream product.

Finally, for those of you still using an iPod with no desire to test the iPhone waters, fear not. We’re fully aware that iPod users still vastly outnumber iPhone users, and while most of the news these days concerns the iPhone (or iPod touch), we’ll try out best to make sure the magazine stays relevant to all of you traditional iPod users as well.

So welcome to the fold, all of you, whether you’re joining us from the original iPhone platform, or because you ditched your RAZR, or because you finally upgraded from your iPod touch, or because you’re still using it. Regardless of how each of you arrived here, this is now a new platform, and we’re all part of it in one way or another.

July 14th issue: 3 Doors Down, App Store, 3G iPhone, New Media Expo, and more!

iPhone 3G launch stories from around the world

AT&T Store in Oxford, Mississippi
on-site report by Matt Saye
of iProng Magazine

I live in a small university town (pop: 12,000 during the school year, about 9,000 during the summer) so when I went to my local AT&T store on July 10 to make sure I was eligible for an upgrade and they told me to get there very early, I laughed. But just to be safe I got there at 6:30 a.m., a full hour and a half before the iPhone went on sale and sure enough there were already 14 people in line ahead of me. By the time 8 o’clock came the line was between 60 and 70, which is considerable for the size of my town.

At this point, if you’re reading this you’ve probably heard about the longer lines and longer waits at both AT&T and Apple Stores, and Oxford, Mississippi was no exception. AT 8 o’clock the AT&T employees let in the first 10 people in line and by 9:10 not a single one had left the store. However, after the initial confusion, during which the store owner came out to apologize for the long waits and explain what was happening, he said they had been on the phone with other stores and worked out some of the issues, and by the time I entered the store around 9:20 that was obvious. While it may have taken over an hour for the first customers to have their phones activated, I left the store around 9:45, not the best wait time, but far better than my predecessors. Part of the reason for speeding up the lines was after purchasing the phones, customers were given the option of taking the phone back to their houses and activating through iTunes there, rather than waiting in the store and clogging up the line. I chose to have mine activated in the store simply because I was there, had already waited this long, and wanted to just have it over and done with. Besides, I didn’t have to go to work until 2 pm, so I could afford the wait.

Once I got home, though, the real frustration kicked in. I had no problem waiting in line for as long as I did; I actually kind of expected it, despite my scoffing at the AT&T employees the day before. However, once I got home, ready to sync my contacts, music, and a few free apps I’d downloaded the night before, I found that I could not add anything at all to the iPhone until it was registered through the iTunes store (a process that is apparently different than the “tethering” the AT&T employees did in-store). Like many (if not all) new iPhone owners that day I was met with constant errors saying iTunes could not connect with the iTunes Store. It was a process of plugging in the iPhone, waiting for it to connect, receiving the error, unplugging and repeating. It was roughly noon by the time I was able to actually connect to the iTunes Store, although to be fair, once I made the initial connection, I was able to breeze through the registration without any more lagging, even when it made more connections to the Store.

After that connection, though I have had nothing but a positive experience. The app store works great (and so do the apps I’ve downloaded). The phone is a dream to use – easy to use, intuitive, and FUN.

So all-in-all my iPhone activation process took roughly 6 hours from arriving at the store to having it fully functional–3 if you don’t count the time spent in line– and the question that my friends have all asked me is: “is it worth it?” Well, let me see, I had fun talking to the people standing in line; I managed to get the 2nd to last black 16GB iPhone in the store; I had a long wait that was expected but a longer one that wasn’t. Oh, and I got an iPhone that I’ve been wanting ever since I saw the initial announcement at the 2007 MacWorld Expo.

So could the Day One process have been better? Yes. Were there flaws that should have been foreseen that were frustrating? Definitely. Was it worth it? Absolutely.